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Preparing your home for professional carpet cleaning

Most people have carpets in their homes. Carpets are popular because they make the room cozy and add warmth especially during winter. However, carpets wear out over time and they can split. This requires the help of professional carpet cleaners and you can help them by preparing your home for them to clean your carpet in the following ways:

Accessing Your Taps
Professional cleaners need access to the taps in your house. Hot water extraction after deep cleaning is necessary. Hence the need to have a ready available water source.

Create Work Space
It’s important to create space well in advance of professional carpet cleaners entering your home. Move any furniture that may be covering the carpets. Ensure that the cleaners will be able to move around the home easily and that they can access power sources for their equipment. Take your pets out for the duration of the cleaning or ask a friend to look after them for you!

Remove Fragile Items

Keep any fragile and valuable items in your home out of the way of the cleaners. A professional cleaner needs time needs clear space while moving around the rooms indoors. This will avoid the cleaners accidentally knocking items over that you can’t bear to see broken.

Find Parking Space
It is common for professional cleaners to arrive in large vans that occupy a lot of space while carrying loads of bulky equipment. Arrange a parking space that will give them an area to offload and carry their equipment into your home conveniently.

Remove Furniture

Professional carpet cleaners will ask you to shift the furniture to another location so that they can work with ample space. Where the furniture is too heavy to carry, you can place it against the walls. Move lighter items to other temporary storage spaces like the garage or patio. It should include the kids’ toys and anything else to declutter the rooms that need to be accessed.
For curtain cleaning, all upholstery should be raised off the floor so that they do not get into contact with the cleaning machines. You can use hooks or an item like a hangar mounted on a curtain rod to prevent the fabric from falling back onto or close to the ground.

Mark Areas You Need Cleaned
Mark out the areas that require special attention. These could be areas where there have been wine spills or that are more worn than other parts of the carpet. This will help the professional cleaner focus on areas that require more work or chemical cleaners. See here for advice on preparing for your professional carpet cleaning.

Vacuum Floor Surfaces
For the professional carpet cleaner’s job to be easier, you can vacuum the floors and remove any residual dirt ahead of their arrival. Wipe off any dirt and do some dusting before and after the cleaner has finished the job. A small amount of preparation could make all the difference!

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Why should you go for carpet?

In the days when laminate seems to be the trendy in-thing to have in your house, there’s still a lot to be said for carpet – read on to see why YOU should go for it!

Carpets are warmer than hard flooring, which is especially lovely in the winter: no stepping out of bed at 7am on a Monday onto a freezing cold floor when all you want to do is burrow under the duvet instead of getting ready and heading to the office. The softness of carpet makes it more comfortable to walk on no matter what you’ve gone on your feet (or sit on, if you’re entertaining a large group of people and don’t have enough chairs) and it’s safer if you have kids running around. Slipping on laminate flooring can lead to fairly serious injuries, especially if there’s a radiator or table nearby.

Having carpet in the house offers extra thermal insulation, so it’s energy efficient and in the long run, you might save more than a few pennies. They also absorb sound, meaning rock music, the teenagers shouting and the dog barking won’t echo throughout the house or annoy the neighbours – not too much, anyway!

Carpet can also be used as a statement in terms of interior décor, in the same way you might have one wall with bold wallpaper – use a bright coloured or patterned carpet to really say something with a room. Carpets are also cheaper, quicker and easier to install than most hard flooring. So instead of asking why carpet, ask yourself why not?

Curtains or Blinds? The pros & cons

Deciding whether to go for curtains or blinds to cover up your windows can be a tough decision, so we’ve weighed up the pros and cons of both to help you narrow it down…

Blinds – the pros 

Blinds tend to take up a lot less space than curtains, as they’re kept within the window frame and there’s little-to-no overhang. You can control exactly how much light you let in by having them as open or as closed as you like, with some blinds offering complete blackout, and they come in hundreds of different designs that you can choose from to jazz up your windows.

Blinds – the cons

With slatted blinds especially, some light may leak through even when they appear to be fully closed – and blinds don’t retain much heat. Blinds gather a lot of dust, too, so be prepared to clean them often; individual slats can break, too, so keep hold of the spares that come with them!

Curtains – the pros

Curtains can be a huge feature of a room, especially as they come in a whole range of colours, patterns and fabrics, and they retain heat so they keep your room a bit warmer in the winter. Curtains are good at keeping out the light, and you can add a blackout backing to make them even better.

Curtains – the cons

Especially if you’ve got a small room, curtains can take up a lot of space – making a room look even smaller. Curtains can also be prone to staining and mould, particularly in the bathroom or kitchen where there’s moisture, and this can lead to smells.

So now you know the pros and cons of both curtains and blinds – decide what’s best for you, finish off your window (and room!) and take care of them.

What NOT to do with carpet stains

So you spilt red wine on the carpet on New Year’s Eve, or the kids had muddy trainers and forgot to take them off – either way, you’ve stained your carpet and need to get it sorted. Read on to find out what not to do!

Wait – the longer you wait, the worse and harder to remove the stain will get, and you’ll be left with it potentially forever.

Scrub – if you scrub at the stain, you run the risk of pushing it deeper into the fibres of your carpet. It’s best to pat the area gently, so whatever’s causing the stain can be absorbed by the cloth without messing up your carpet any further!

Over-wet – there’s a temptation to chuck a load of water and products at the stain in an attempt to get rid of it, but the truth is this won’t help and it will damage the backing of your carpet.

Forget to rinse – I know, we just told you not to use too much liquid; but make sure you rinse away any product or solution you’ve used. Over time the chemicals can wear down your carpet, and the sticky residue left behind will attract dirt.

Air dry – if you leave your carpet to air dry, you’ll quite often be left with noticeable rings. Cover the area with a white cloth or towel (so there’s no colour transfer) and place a heavy object on top. Leave to dry overnight and in the morning, vacuum over the area to ensure it’s completely clean and dry.

Don’t be afraid, also, to contact a professional if you’re worried about the stain – after all, a carpet is a big part of any room!